The invention relates to the field of reading, writing, inspecting, printing, engraving, plotting, and vision. In the reading aspect it particularly relates to the fields of machine vision and inspection machines, such as those used to read and/or inspect industrial products such as compact disks (CDs), computer disks, video disks, digital video disks (DVDs), Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) and silicon wafers used in the integrated circuits (IC) industry. In the printing aspect it relates to the field of writing, engraving, and printing machines, such as those used in the industrial fields of digital printing, internal drum scanning, preprinting and pre-press industry, laser beam writing, and photolithography.